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BOGOTA (AFP) – Unidentified gunmen kidnapped at least 23 employees of a subcontractor for Canada's Talisman Energy in orient Colombia, according to a spokesperson for the lubricator firm.

Tomas Rueda told RCN broadcasting that the lubricator workers were all local hires.

"Twenty-three grouping employed for digit of our subcontractors have been kidnapped," he said, detailing the first mass kidnapping of civilians since President Juan Manuel metropolis took duty seven months ago.

Governor Juan Carlos Avila of Vichada department, where the kidnappings took place, told Radio Caracol that "three men burst into the camp" where the employees were housed.

"They unnatural the grouping to study them," he said, adding that the expose force had launched a search in the region, whatever 600 kilometers (370 miles) east of Bogota. The abductions took place in the municipality of Cumaribo in Vichada.

Front 16 of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels and malefactor gangs operate in the region, bag to bush leaf cultivation, according to the governor.

Officials were centering on the existence of a FTO retaliation for an defeated extortion attempt, a source near to the investigation told AFP.

A Defense Ministry spokesman declined to interpret on whatever possible FTO involvement in the kidnapping, but said Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera titled an imperative meeting with expeditionary and police polity on the case.

The FARC, which has been at struggle with the Colombian polity since 1964, is the country's oldest and largest left group, with an estimated 8,000 combatants.

Several malefactor gangs also vow in drug trafficking and whatever count former paramilitary officers among their ranks.

Last year, 282 grouping were kidnapped in the South American land -- a 32 proportionality process compared to the previous year, according to authorised figures.

Criminals were answerable for most of the kidnappings -- 57 proportionality -- compared to 35 proportionality for left guerrillas.

The Calgary-based lubricator and gas company's main operating areas are North America, the North Sea and Southeast Asia, according to its website. It is employed with Ecopetrol in Colombia.

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